Oscar Piastri addresses management change as Mark Webber steps back

Oscar Piastri says his management reshuffle for 2026 is nothing dramatic

Oscar Piastri has addressed his personal management change ahead of the 2026 Formula 1 season.

Heading into the new season, the Australian driver confirmed that he had made changes to his management team. While Mark Webber is still Piastri's manager, he will take a step back from his trackside support role and put his focus instead on commercial matters.

Joining the 24-year-old at the track will be his former Formula 2 race engineer at Prema in 2021, Pedro Matos, and Australian mental coach Emma Murray, who will increase her involvement at the track.

"There wasn't anything specific, we just made a decision for things to look a bit different," Piastri explained to the media in Bahrain when asked if there was a specific moment from 2025 which led to the decision.

"Mark is still very much involved and I've been in contact with him a lot over the last few weeks. He just won't be trackside as much anymore. So that's really the extent of it. But yeah, there was nothing specific that triggered it."

Pre-season testing in Bahrain is almost over, and the teams will soon head to Melbourne for Piastri's home race, the Australian Grand Prix, from 6-8 March.

"I think it's definitely been a learning curve," Piastri said of the pre-season testing in Bahrain and private testing in Barcelona.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

"There are still some things we need to do as drivers that are certainly very different to what we had to do last year. But I think the kind of optimisation around driving that way, especially as drivers, I think we're getting our heads around the new things we need to do.

"And as teams, making accommodations for having to drive a certain way now. So I think it has improved. It still is very different to what we had before.

"I think naturally, we've all probably found performance and just with performance, it's made some creature comforts a little bit nicer as well. So I think we are making progress. Let's see what Melbourne's like."